ANDREW BIAR: Taking issue with revolutionary ‘hero’

Published 11:00 pm, Wednesday, October 16, 2013

By Andrew BiarStrategic Public Affairs

Kids are being sent home and condemned for wearing shirts with the NRA icon, guns and the oh so dangerous American flag. Why? We’re told the shirts represent violence and incite controversy. If we are going to apply the same so-called logic then we must send kids home who are wearing Che Guevara T-shirts, logos, pendants or any item with his image, likeness, name etc.

It is pathetic to think that some people believe wearing a Che T-shirt is some kind of fashion statement. Talk about something that represents violence. I might — and this is a very small might — forgive the youth who wear Che T-shirts because more than likely they are utterly ignorant of the evil he perpetrated, his lack of respect for freedoms, and yes, they have zero appreciation and knowledge of history. But it makes you wonder why any adult who knows the real Che, not the idolized, revisionist history Che, would let their kid wear a Che T-shirt.

Even more disturbing are adults who wear Che T-shirts. Either these adults are completely ignorant like their kids, lacking any knowledge of history, or they simply agree with the brutality and murder he perpetrated. He was no freedom fighter. Not even close. Those would be people like George Washington, Lech Walesa and Aung San Suu Kyi. Che led the execution of thousands of children, women and men under the leadership of another brutal individual, Fidel Castro. Worship of him is a story for another day.

Why would people idolize someone like Che? Beats me. Let’s set aside the thousands of people he murdered and had murdered. This is difficult for me to do, but, I will in this case. Che was vehemently opposed to the freedoms many of us value and take for granted. He did not support freedom of speech. His support for this sacred freedom can be summed up in this quote: “If any person has a good word for the previous government that is good enough for me to have him shot.”

Let’s look at how he thought of the press. He addressed a reporter saying: “I know your tactics! You press people are injecting venom into your articles to damage the revolution. You're either with us or against us. We're not going to allow all the press foolishness that Batista allowed. I can have you executed this very night. How about that!" From this quote I would derive that he was opposed to a free and independent press.

Due process is something we place immense value on here in the United States. Che viewed our respect for due process with contempt: “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary … These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution!”

As far as his respect for religious freedom, this says it all: “In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.” Some of us might disagree with what the preacher says on Sunday, but I venture to say we would not squish him, or for that matter, Jesus.

Che deserves condemnation and repudiation. He should not be worshiped, honored or respected. He should be relegated to the dung heap of history. He was a murderer who trained firing squads to kill children, women and men. The next time you see someone wearing a Che T-shirt ask that person why they support someone like Che. Maybe they want to go live under a regime that Che built. Now that would be a bagful of freedom. I for one will send my kids to school wearing T-shirts with American flags, NRA logos, guns, the Ten Commandments and the U.S. Constitution.

Andrew Biar is president of Strategic Public Affairs, a Houston-based full-service firm that provides stratgic advice and counsel to small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, trade associations and PACs. His email is andrew.biar@strategicpublicaffairs.com.